Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the treatment patterns and success rates with antidepressants utilized by patients in a managed care organization (MCO). Methods: Data were extrapolated from a claims database from an MCO with 225 000 members. Treatment patterns were...

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of antidepressants through use of mutually exclusive disease indications using a managed care database. Design and setting: A claims database from a 225 000 member managed care organisation was used for the study. A hierarchy of...

Disease management has become an increasingly popular tool used to manage people with chronic diseases in managed care organizations. The implementation of these programs, coupled with pressures to document quality and control costs, has increased the need for information regarding the health...

Objectives: To identify the asthma prevalence rate, the total healthcare and asthma-related treatment costs, and the medical and pharmacy costs associated with different asthma medication usage patterns in a managed-care organisation (MCO). Study design and participants: The medical and pharmacy...

The incidence of fungal nail infections is increasing and this is possibly because of several factors: better methods of detection, a growing population of immunocompromised patients who have a greater susceptibility to such infections, the increased use of immunosuppressive drugs, the...

Objective: To assess the utility of using a computer software program to determine whether epoetin alfa therapy drug use evaluation (DUE) criteria were met. Study design: Computer software was designed to allow pharmacists to enter patient data such as haematocrit results and iron stores into a...

Objective: To evaluate a pneumonia disease management programme in a naturalistic setting. Design and Setting: A 300 000 member managed-care organisation introduced an antibacterial treatment guideline designed to change antibacterial prescribing by physicians. A relational database was created...

Elevated cholesterol levels are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Treatment strategies promoting the associated health benefits from a reduction in elevated cholesterol levels have been outlined in guidelines published by the National Cholesterol Education Program....